From the Daily Tele:

A message of hope for Cronulla
By Sarah Blake
December 10, 2006

A YEAR ago, Sydney burned. It was ugly, raw and heart-breaking as public hatred turned a beachside suburb into a war zone.

The fall-out has been spectacular, and continues to this day. Promising careers have ended, extremists have found expanded platforms, and Cronulla continues the fight to rebuild its battered reputation.

But in the aftermath of the terrible 48 hours that led to drunken “Aussie” mobs attacking young Lebanese men and culminated in revenge attacks across the eastern beaches, there are growing sparks of hope.

This ranges from a teenage boy learning how not to hate to a community getting together to rebuild.

All are working to ensure the riots are never repeated.

“When the revenge attacks were happening, we all wanted to be there. We all wanted to take part because there was a lot of hatred,” Punchbowl teenager Mohsen Saleh says.

But Mohsen, 16, didn’t join his Lebanese-Australian mates in the ensuing violence and vandalism throughout Sutherland Shire, Maroubra and Brighton-le-Sands in the 48 hours after the December 9 riots.

“My parents are very proud of their home here in Australia. Over their dead bodies I would have gone, so I stayed home,” he says.

Mohsen is thankful that he stayed away. During the past 12 months, he has gone from feeling hatred for the mob at Cronulla to coming some way to understanding them.

Mohsen says the turn-around came when he took part in a community forum where he was introduced to boys from different cultures.

“Before, I considered myself Lebanese - but now, I consider myself a Lebanese Australian,” he says.

“When I got to know these Aussie guys, I realised they were just the same as me.

“My friends are shocked that I go to Cronulla at all, and they are shocked when I tell them that the people at Cronulla are good people.”

It’s not easy to find Cronulla locals who want to talk about the events of last December.

A spokeswoman for newly elected mayor David Redmond said he was reluctant to “put himself out there on this, because nobody here really wants to dwell on it. People have moved on”.

Restaurateur Ray Bradbery said he could predict the size of the fall in takings every time the riots were mentioned in the press.

“Business is improving week by week, but it’s nowhere near what it should be,” Mr Bradbery, president of the local chamber of commerce, says.

“We see dips every time there’s a negative story in the press.

“It puts uncertainty in people’s minds, and we lose the cream that would have helped us to, in some ways, relieve what we lost last year.”

Mr Bradbery, who suffered a heart attack he blames on the stress of the riots, knows of seven local restaurants that have been forced to close.

“As business owners, we can prepare for a lot of things, but not for something totally beyond our control and, more importantly, unprecedented,” he says.

This summer, dozens of family-friendly events will be held to lure crowds back to Cronulla. They include a film festival, a cycling event and an Olympic-distance triathlon.

“This is a place for families to come - and it’s a safe place,” Mr Bradbery says.

“There has been a lot of work done to make sure something like this never happens again.”

The anniversary of the riots will be just another day, Mr Bradbury says.

“We tend not to talk about it any more. To us it’s old news.

“It was 48 hours of madness that has not been repeated in any shape or form. We went back to normality, if you could call it that, on the Tuesday after the riots. We have gone back to our lives, but it keeps being dragged up again and again.”

Mr Bradbery says many Cronulla residents resent that the riots gave voice to extremists of all persuasions.

A bikini rally scheduled for yesterday was postponed because of widespread concern that it would spark violence.

And Premier Morris Iemma was forced during the week to step back from his comment that police faced specific threats this weekend from people “wanting another Cronulla”.

He said he had been referring to recent reports that the ex-treme right-wing Australia First party, which has been blamed for fuelling last year’s riot, was agitating again.

Australia First is headed by white supremacist Jim Saleam.

“What I was referring to were … some of the interviews that have been done … by Mr Saleam in the past couple of weeks,” Mr Iemma said.

“(He) was wanting to stand as a (political) candidate and incite people to commemorate the 12- month anniversary of Cronulla .”

The riots created a headache the Iemma government is finding it hard to shake.

They even cost Mr Iemma a senior MP. He was forced to sack then police minister Carl Scully after Mr Scully twice misled parliament.

Mr Bradbery says many in the community feel the State Government’s response to the riots was too little, too late.

He believes the Government thought it “would just go away”.

“But we knew it would go on for a lot longer - and it has.”